UKC

Probably me being a bit dim however I did search the forums and couldn't see much on the topic. 

My partner and I did a walk using the free Viewranger app, and quite like the idea of having a community of people submitting walks. We've also got the free OS Maps app however, and this seems to suggest you can do the same on it.

As the full subscription of both are priced the same, and seem to give access to both Landranger and Explorer maps, is there a difference? One thing I found on Viewranger is it didn't actually say where you were, however not being a total idiot with navigation it wasn't the biggest of worry. 

If anyone has experience of both and has a preference..which one? and why? 

Cheers. 

Wondering the same. Dont beat yourself up

Essentially, however, both apps (and others) essentially do the same thing ...

Hi, I have used both for a couple of years (on Android as I know this can make a difference).  I don’t really use the suggested walk facility on either of them so can’t really comment on that.  In terms of the route planning facility I would probably prefer the os maps, but of course you can upload gpx files to either so you are not restricted.

in terms of use on the hill I prefer the ViewRanger app, I find it less temperamental than the os (often have to restart to get it working).  Also it has a some features I like, such as it automatically caches maps for you rather than having to specifically download and save an area for offline use.  Also the curser is quite good to get spot heights if things etc.  Both give you a live position, just be careful of this as it can be slow to update and of course gps can be funny in complex terrain.

hope that helps.  I am sure others will highlight little differences too!

oli

That seems a bit odd.  Mine definitely does.  Is the GPS on the phone switched on and does the app have permission to use it?  On the map screen there's a button at the bottom between the "+" and the "-" that centres the view on your current position.

The Viewranger app is much better than the OS's own app imo.  More stable and reliable, easier to use and the Open Street Map derived layers (Open Cycle Map, 'Viewranger Landscape', etc.) often show paths that aren't visible on the OS map.

However for printing a paper map at home the OS website is better than Viewranger.  (It allows you to print 1:25k or 1:50k maps to scale on A4 or A5 paper.)

You wouldn’t expect anything else though, would you, on UKC 😉

Thanks for the replies all. I had a feeling they were both filling the same gap which this seems to confirm. As has been suggested, this is only really for bumbling around easier terrain, and as a backup up to the faithful map and compass when further afield, so looks like either will be fine.  

Vieranger is also very useful if you go outside UK ( when er are allowed to).  You can buy or subscribe to eg France's ISGN maps.  Or, if you dont want to spend money the free openstreet maps are often pretty good.  And all can be downloaded inadvance so you are not reliant on signal.  

As others have pointed out, you just need to turn on the GPS in settings to see where you are. 

Rumour has it that there are different "location sensitivity" settings on some phones which will affect the accuracy and speed of its GPS capability. Is this the case? 

If you find the apps much of a muchness (particularly as you enjoy navigating 'by hand' with a paper map & compass), you're probably better off sticking with the OS.  The subscription allows you to print and unlimited number of your own custom OS maps to scale off their website.

A4 maps printed on waterproof paper are brilliant for short routes that will fit on them.  (Assuming you manage to hang on to them on a windy day.)  I often print one to just carry in my hand and use with an orienteer's thumb compass when I'm exploring a new route for a run.

(This is the paper I mean - there are different versions for inkjet or laser printers: https://www.memory-map.co.uk/christmas-gift-ideas/toughprint-waterproof-paper-a4-inkjet-25-sheets )

I have an A3 printer and laminator too, and have built up a fair stock of laminated A3 OS maps to use on the front deck of my sea kayak instead of messing about with a map case - that alone is well worth the price of the subscription for me.

I've been contemplating subscribing to the OS maps for ViewRanger this coming year, I thought it was quite good value (compared to the cost of a single paper map). But then a friend I go hiking with asked "What is better about the OS maps though?", and I wasn't sure of the answer really! What do people think?

I know on ViewRanger you have contour lines, water courses, paths, roads etc., peaks. What's extra with the OS maps that is useful? This feels weird to ask as I've always seen OS maps as the Holy Grail of maps but when I actually think about it I don't know why they are better than the free ViewRanger ones.

PS to reiterate to the OP as someone else said, you can definitely get your location from ViewRanger and it's the button at the bottom in the centre. There are a few settings in the settings for what that button does, I think you can press it a few times and it defines whether the map turns as you turn or stays static regardless of your orientation.

Thanks

A couple more differences in addition to the above.

On OS maps, when planning a route on a PC, the route 'snaps' to tracks and paths, making route creation must faster. Viewranger doesn't.

You can view the Viewranger map on an Apple watch, so you can see where you are on the map on your watch. Besides being simpler in bad weather and keeping your phone dry, you don't look like a tw*t that's glued to their phone while doing the Cuillin Ridge.

It would also be worthwhile considering Memory Map. You purchase the digital maps and can download it to three devices. It gives you position and uses surprisingly little battery with my phone on airplane mode. You can print pages to scale or otherwise. If you leave tracking on in the background you can save the track and share as a GPX file. It's worth keeping an eye out for deals on this system. I bought the 1:25k of the whole of the UK for £100 during the first lockdown. Adding that to the 1:50k version I've had for years on my phone I can zoom in from road atles to 1:50k to 1:25k. Gets lots of use.

I have both of these apps on my phone and I prefer the way the way the direction of travel arrow works on Viewranger much more than the little red triangle on the OS app.

After two years of OS App for iOS, I've changed my subscription to Viewranger.

Although the OS App has definitely improved since I started using it, there are still irritating problems. Too often I find the map greys out and fails to show the map, irrespective of signal and/or whether I downloaded the map in advance. Restarting the app tends to fix it.

So far for me, Viewranger seems more robust and I've had no maps fail. The downloaded maps never struggle to show. But like others have said, there's not much difference really.

I share your enthusiasm for Memory-Map. I only have the 1:25k maps, but I have them on my phone, tablet and desktop - the latter two for planning and the former for in-the-field navigation. 

Reading your comment, I thought no one under the age of 60 thinks looking at a phone makes you look like a tw*t. Then I looked at your profile. Fair enough.

I’ve never found a way to print from ViewRanger at all. Is there one?

Otherwise, I’ve found ViewRanger perfectly adequate. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that you can buy map ‘tiles’ in ViewRanger rather than have to subscribe, which personally I prefer. 

The OP is talking about taking out a subscription to get access to OS maps, either through the OS themselves or through Viewranger - so the same 'Landranger' 50k and 'Explorer' 25k OS maps in either case.

Except - weirdly - I noticed last year that the OS map viewable on the OS app was actually a slightly older version than the one on the OS website or the Viewranger app/website.  I've ditched the OS app since then as I was running out of storage space on my phone, so I'm not sure if that's still the case.  I only noticed because there are a couple of relatively new public rights of way not far from here that have only just appeared on the latest version of the OS map.  (Though they've existed on the ground for a few years now.)

Without the subscription the OS app/website just gives you access to a rather lacklustre 'standard' map, with a bit of added detail in the national parks.  The Viewranger 'standard' free map is based on the Open Street Map, and is definitely a bit more useful than that one.  It often shows paths that don't appear on the OS map, concessionary paths, paths across access land and others - but you have to be a bit careful with them because there's nothing to tell you whether they're a right of way or not.

The Open Street Map and several variants of it are free (as the name suggests it's a open-source kind of a thing).  You don't need Viewranger to see those. 
Eg:
https://www.openstreetmap.org
http://opencyclemap.org/

If there's a way to print a useful plain map, I haven't found it either. 

If you plot or record a route you can print a kind of 'route card' for that, which includes a smallish map.  It's potentially a good way to share a route with friends, there's space to write directions, waypoints and wotnot, but it's not useful as a paper map in itself.

With the OS website maps I generally 'print' the map I want to a pdf.  It sometimes takes a bit of trial and error to get the area it covers just right, especially if a circular walk or whatever only just fits on.  Then I keep the pdf file after I've printed it on paper, then if the paper map gets wet or whatever it's very easy to just print another copy and I feel free to scribble notes directly onto the printed version, highlight a route etc.  (For sea-kayaking purposes I usually transfer a few details from the marine chart or the guide book onto the sea as well, lights, buoys, tidal flows etc..)

I don't think that's right, Viewranger also 'snaps' to paths.  In the top right corner of the map there are two drop-down boxes, the top one selects the map layer, the one below is labelled "Route Generation" and gives you the option to choose 'off', 'on foot', 'by bicycle' or 'by car'.

Unlike the OS's own website, that works everywhere on Viewranger.  With the OS it only works inside the national parks.

You can certainly feel like a bit of a tw*t sometimes though, trying to use a touch-screen phone with wet hands in the rain. ;-)

I am on Android.  I tend to go with the standard settings but I think you can change things like frequency of fix to reduce battery consumption.  

Note that it won't allow you to record a track if you are on power saving mode. 

I used OS Maps for a few years, then switched to Viewranger last year and wouldn't go back. Earlier this year they were bought out by OutdoorActive. I have been using that app all year, and it's fantastic. You also get Europe wide mapping included, not sure if that's of any use to you though.

OS Maps was always buggy and inconsistent to me, caught me out a couple of times too when my downloaded maps didn't work offline. Haven't faced any issues with either of the other two.

Apart from the general aesthetic, I think the OS maps are much more useful for planning routes and following descriptions of routes. They clearly show information such as access land boundaries, footpath / bridleway / byway designations, and lots of place names (eg names of individual farms) that don't show up on the viewranger map. Also the odd useful bit of information like parking areas. 

If you tried to plan a route using open street map or viewranger maps alone you'd probably end up trying to walk up a private drive and getting shouted at by a farmer in the first hour. 

Personally I tend to use a combination of viewranger and OS maps both on the viewranger app. I'll plan out where I want to go on the OS map, then check the viewranger map for more detail on potential paths I can follow over access land, as those maps do show a lot more paths than the os maps do.

I used to use the OS app a while ago, but it was just much more buggy than viewranger in general, and then they released an absolute howler of an update that made it basically unusable (and somehow resulted in the maps only displaying diagonally) so I switched.  

With a subscription to Viewranger you're paying to access OS maps on Viewranger, not relying on Viewranger's own free relief or landscape maps.

I stand corrected, many thanks. It seems to work OK, but the routes created still appear to be a series of straight bits, whereas OS follows the paths faithfully. I shall experiment further.

After much research and testing i like Locus

https://www.locusmap.eu/

It handles external maps (I load my own OS 1:25 of the whole uk ) And can cash OpenStreetMap for free. Which is user updated and has paths OS dose not always. Plus a good recording function for the push bike that i use in place of Strava now.

Backcountry navigator is average but has all the OS for free!

Lots of good info at:

http://www.cumbriasoaringclub.co.uk/kb/osm.php

For any printing problems, be it OS, MemoryMap or viewranger I just use "print screen". You can crop and resize if your not bothered about scale.

Exactly, but I think elliot was questioning whether they're was any point in buying that subscription to access OS maps given you can get free maps in viewranger. My thoughts are that while the free maps in viewranger are useful, I wouldn't want to rely on them alone.

I’ve recently switched from OSmaps app subscription to ViewRanger with OS maps subscription. Early days but ViewRanger seems far better with lots more features and less buggy. OS Maps app is more user friendly but probably only because it has less and hidden features. 

I love Viewranger and just by map tiles without subscription.

What I do too. All my mapping use via Viewranger is with OS maps.

Can anyone advise on the age of the mapping data? I've noticed, on some trips, significant difference in forest cover and even the omission/inclusion of buildings. For example 'boat house' on Loch Builg. That's not been there for ages and even the foundations have largely been subsumed into the land. 

I noticed quite recently there are noticeable differences in contour spacing and crag definition -

O/S accurately highlighted the tightening of contours and crag illustration.  Whilst ViewRanger showed no change in contours and weak/poor crag definition.  I was forced to check it out when we nearly came unstuck using View Ranger.   Thank goodness it wasn't snow conditions.

I generally flick between the two now.

Just do a screen shot and print it. I do this on both laptop and iPad. Its quick and straightforward. I then put it in a A4 clear plastic sleeve protector and sellotape the top so it's waterproof.

Much prefer the Viewranger app for use outside in a pinch (though I normally just use paper ones), prefer the OS site for plotting and printing maps to scale. On that basis, whether one is better than the other overall depends on what you value most.

I just downloaded on the strength of this - but it's only offering me annual or monthly subscription; no pay/tile.  How do I get that?

Go to

https://my.viewranger.com/shop?locale=en

Credit Packs

Buy credit and then in Viewranger app you can buy tiles using the points from your credit pack

This may not be exactly the same for a new user but what I do to buy more tiles is go to the map view (folded map icon) and touch on the ‘Maps Here’ double diamond icon in the top right. For me this screen says at the top  ‘Buy more tiles.’ You’ll get asked what scale you want, and then you can zoom in on the lap there. 

Sadly it seems it stopped on Christmas day:

https://outdooractive-uk.helpscoutdocs.com/article/74-faqs

Subscription only from here

I’m still able to download map tiles but maybe it’s stopped for new users? Hard to tell from the FAQs. 
 

This is a bit annoying. I think i have probably bought most of the uk  maps I will ever need on viewranger and now it looks like once my phone dies and I have to download the new app I will lose them all. I think I will refuse the inadequate compensation of 3 months free subscription and use OS in protest. It’s one thing to stop selling map tiles but to basically  take away ones I’ve paid for is pretty crap. No doubt it was all in the small print ...

I wonder if this might be a deliberate policy with some mapping companies?

I used to use Anquet maps, and they've changed their software so old maps can't be used at least twice. I wonder if there's a relatively small consumer market for OS mapping, and once those consumers have bought mapping the income stream dries up?

That reminds me, I need to bite the bullet and try and swap the battery in my old samsung S6.

Has this changed?. I have viewranger and quiet like it. I tend to use the tiles. My understanding is you can have viewranger active on up to 4 devices. If you use a new device you can download all the tiles on your account. You can disable viewranger one one device if you want to add an active viewranger on a new account and you already have 4 (I havent tried this but that is my understanding).

Yes but from what I read above it sounds like soon you won’t be able to download viewranger only the new outdoor active app which will not support the tiles you have already bought

And - I don't see Harvey's maps in the list of maps available on Outdoor Active:
https://www.outdooractive.com/en/k/topographic-maps/37514020/

Looks very much like loyal users of Viewranger are getting shafted by this. Or am I just being cynical?

I got a neg for passing on my findings?

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/hilltalk/viewranger_or_os_maps_is_there_a_difference-729203?v=1#x9361675

I don’t think you are being cynical. Apparently I get a subscription to Outdooractive Pro+ in compensation which is worth a fiver a month for a year. I’m not sure how much I’ve spent on tiles but I’m sure it’s substantially more than 60 quid.  
I’ve already been through this once when the old OS app I used wasn’t upgraded and I lost the maps I’d bought already. That’s why I went to ViewRanger rather than the new OS app. I don’t like subscription models generally but I’m beginning to see the advantages now. 

The complete loss of the Harveys maps is extremely irritating - that alone will stop me from moving away from the Viewranger app - let alone the money I've spent buying tiles for all over Europe, and the UK (both OS + Harveys).

Agreed. I guess we can keep using ViewRanger until the app is no longer upgraded- that’s my plan anyway. 

I wasn't aware of the fact the Viewranger app was being dropped/transitioned.

Just 2 weeks ago I spent £60 odd on Harveys maps on Viewranger. Some warning while making these purchases would have been nice. FFS.

Back to paper maps it is.

And it gets even more painful when you see how much you would need to pay out to get Harveys maps on their new platform:

http://www.harveymaps.co.uk/acatalog/Harvey-digital-mapping-avenza-app.html

So that's £41.98 for Snowdonia North & South.  Wow.

Yet....buy an OS paper map and the digital version comes FREE with it.

And they don't currently offer the 1:25k scale maps as they do on Viewranger.

I learned to read maps as a young orienteer in school, so Harvey maps are natural, and there is part of me that likes to support the underdog too.

Let's hope there is a decent way forward when the time comes!

I contacted Viewranger about this, and they said they were continuing in parallel with Outdooractive. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

I intend to keep using ViewRanger until they pull the plug- which will inevitably happen sooner or later. Probably when they can no longer be bothered to update for newer operating systems.

I pay £25 a year to have access to the OS maps on the Viewranger app. However the OS maps are not up-to-date. I know that footpaths have been diverted 25+ years ago but still the old route is shown.

If I subscribe to the OS app and use OS maps will that show up to date detail? I have seen poor reviews of the OS app, so need some reassurance!

Alun

I think it's unlikely.  Until recently the OS app was showing a slightly older version of the map than either the OS website or the Viewranger app here.  (I noticed because there's a relatively new bridleway that has only just appeared on the OS map.)

What do you see if you look on Bing?  https://www.bing.com/maps

Maybe the OS just are out of date.  Or maybe the footpaths were never officially diverted.  There's a big farm not far from here where the official line of a public footpath goes right through the middle of a massive new barn.  They've diverted the path around it on the ground, but never bothered with the paperwork to make it official.

For up to date detail, it would be worth having a look at the Open Street Map and its variants (Open Cycle Map etc..).  The map is updated by its users in a sort of open source stylee, it doesn't tell you which paths are rights of way but it's generally more up to date about where they actually are on the ground.

You can find those maps on Viewranger ("Viewranger Landscape" is based on the same data too.)
Also here:
https://www.openstreetmap.org
http://opencyclemap.org

Where are you talking about?  Give us a grid reference and maybe someone will post a screenshot of what the OS app is showing there.

The Bing map appears to be using the same OS information that is on the Viewranger app. (OS maps). Due to the lockdown I am walking the local paths and sticking to paths which are Rights of Way, so I need field boundary details. It looks like the OS maps are out of date. Do OS get information from the Definitive Maps?

That will make me cry a bit when it happens as well - Viewranger lets me hold the mapping I've got for it (whole country UK 25k mapping) sitting locally on my phone 24/7.

Does anything else let you do that? I don't care about a subscription free, but obviously streaming maps are hopeless for navigation. I don't think OS Maps is any good at downloading large areas of mapping.

I've found the OS app good at down loading maps to my phone, the whole of the Lake District for example no problem.

I emailed viewranger support about this as they are still allowing me to spend money on credits and download tiles.  They replied very quickly 

“You can continue using ViewRanger, it is not stopping, but we are only doing maintenance on it now, no new development. You'll still be able to install it and access the maps you own. For how long is not set, but definitely into 2022, likely longer.”

This is reassuring to some extent. As long as I can get the old app and my maps onto any new phone I get I should be able to keep using what I have paid for at least which is probably most of what I will ever use in this county at least. 
HTH

Thanks Harry. At least that clarifies the situation.